


colours and numbers

by Dandybear



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Family Feels, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Speech Disorders, The Gang Needs a Nap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25750534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandybear/pseuds/Dandybear
Summary: Grace’s voice is in his head. Bright and gentle.Sound out the words, Diego. Let’s start with colours.Red. Ra-Eh-Dd. Like a barking dog. Red like the blood streaks still hiding beneath his moustache.Diego goes on a snack run.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves & Everyone, Diego Hargreeves & Grace Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves/Eudora Patch, Diego Hargreeves/Lila Pitts, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 11
Kudos: 150





	colours and numbers

**Author's Note:**

> Seven siblings are living in my head rent free. Just a short piece of them being soft with each other, and the traumas of seasons one and two catching up. 
> 
> I probably fucked up Diego's stutter, I know he does it on the second word in season two, and I only have it in the first words here. Sorry about that.
> 
> All written in one sitting at 1 AM, so mistakes are mine.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed it.

Grace’s voice is in his head. Bright and gentle:  _ Sound out the words, Diego. Let’s start with colours. _

Red. Ra-Eh-Dd. Like a barking dog. Red like the blood streaks still hiding beneath his moustache.

Green. Grr-Ee-N. Like a growling dog. Green like his reflection in the mirror of the elevator. It glides downward so smoothly he wouldn’t feel it. Except, he does, it’s like his navel is in his chest. His ears pop.

Blue. Buh-Loo. B-b-b-b-b-blue. B’s always trip him up. Make him feel like a b-b-b-b-bumbling idiot. Blue. Blue like the bruises wrapped around his ankle. Blue like the thread stitches itching against his bandage.

Ding.

The elevator doors slide open, revealing the expensive lobby with the modern art fountain and the bellhop in a uniform.

The thing about expensive places like this is that they’re just as sketchy as a motel in the middle of the night, except there’s more than a thin particleboard door between you and whoever is pursuing you.

That was Allison’s reasoning anyway. It’s not logic he found in himself to argue at the time. The desk clerk doesn’t lift her eyes when he limps by, and that’s what matters.

The shitty thing about expensive hotels is that they don’t have vending machines, and if they do it’s all coconut water and vegan protein bars.

Diego likes a good vegan protein bar, but Klaus said he wanted sour skittles. It was an excuse, a task to get him to stop pacing the room. 

They want him to rest.

After months of beds, induced sleeps, and recovery, he thinks he’s had more than enough rest. He doesn’t need it. He needs answers to make his brain stop buzzing with questions.

Five’s body gave out about half an hour into 2019. High tailing it out of the mansion where they grew up. A tactical retreat, Five called it. Running shit scared, Diego corrects in his head.

But it was the right call because it started with the uncontrollable shuddering, followed by slurred speech.

Exhaustion. Two weeks of saving the world without sleep. Running on adrenaline and spite, and finally the juice ran out. Even when too tired to stand, Five tried giving directions from the chair they forced him into.

That’s when Klaus disappeared for about twenty minutes and returned with a baggie of pills. Two were stirred into the gatorade he bought as a cover, and then Five was out. He guessed what they were doing and stood up to give them a crazy-eyed lecture about it, then just dropped.

“Watch his head,” Allison said, as Luther scooped him up and laid him on one of the plush double-sized beds. Diego did what he could, untying Five’s shoes and taking them, then his socks off. 

The night air is clammy against his skin. Familiar. He knows this neighbourhood. It wasn’t a common part of his patrol, but when you live your whole life in the same city the topology finds a way into your head.

The bodega he finds around the corner smells like hot dogs and has every weird flavour of oreo he’s never tried. He finds a magazine section and just reads, trying to absorb exactly what their little stint in the sixties did to the world at hand.

But, it’s not like it’s splashed all over page one. The world isn’t going to be easy and list the changes they made to the timeline. He buys the celebrity gossip rag anyway. For Allison, he thinks. Beef jerky for him.

It rings out to about ten bucks, so that’s the same. The crumpled bills Klaus passed him cover it and then he’s back out in the night air. The expensive hotel still takes up an entire block, standing in front of the night sky. It’s a full moon.

Exhaustion crashes over him with an evening breeze and suddenly he feels the weight of mental hospitals, apocalypses, and piles of bodies.

There’s this pounding heat behind his eyes that makes him drop his head and bite his cheek hard enough to hurt.

The elevator is just as silent on the way up as down. His footsteps are just as silent going down the hall. The key card opens the door and his eyes need to adjust to the low light. No overhead, just TV. Luther is sitting up, eyes trapped in the shadow of his brow, face seeming to drag downwards like the rest of his center of gravity, into his gut. He’s hunched over, sitting up as if awake, but snoring.

Allison’s in the next bed. Her legs are crossed at the ankle and her hair is fanned out on the pillow, an arm slung over her eyes. Still dressed. 

There’s a mass of starfished limbs and dark hair in the third bed that is one half Vanya and one half Five, but its hard to tell which is which in the low light. The last bed is empty, his, probably. It’s not like they drew straws. They’re not kids fighting over the top bunk anymore. 

He finds Klaus smoking on the balcony in some short shorts and a tank top he materialized along with the pills and the cigarettes.

Klaus offers Diego the butt and Diego shakes his head.

“Suit yourself,” Klaus says.

“P-P-Patch smoked,” falls out of Diego’s mouth. He rubs his eyes to hide whatever it is that’s making him like this right now.

Klaus bites his thumb, looking confused, searching, then epiphany, “Right, your girlfriend the cop.”

Diego nods. Klaus nods.

“Shit, it’s been years,” Klaus runs a hand through his hair.

“Not for me,” Diego says.

Klaus nods again. His eyes keep flitting to the deck chairs. 

“C-c-c-could you. W-w-w-would you … come with me to that motel? S-see if she’s--” Klaus puts a hand on his wrist.

“Yeah, of course,” Klaus says.

“I just think what if, what if she’s not dead in this timeline? What does that mean for me? What does that mean for Lila?” and his voice cracks.

Klaus gives him a look that he probably thinks looks wise, but is just that manic kind of condescending Klaus always is.

“Buddy, we all go through rebounds,” Klaus says.

“Lila wasn’t a rebound,” Diego replies hotly.

“First girl you have sex with a few months after your girlfriend dies? That’s a rebound, my friend,” Klaus sips gatorade from a glass. Diego punches his shoulder.

“Ow! I offer you my infinite wisdom and you resort to violence,” Klaus whines.

“You’re an asshole, Klaus.”

“Look, just because she’s a rebound doesn’t mean you don’t love her. I had a whole cult full of rebounds and I loved,” he searches the air for the next word, “Some of them. I’m sure,” he reassures no one.

“I miss Ben.”

That hits Klaus like a slap in the face.

But he just sucks in a breath, lets his cigarette fall thirteen storeys, and says, “Yeah. Me too.”

And, that’s the messed up thing. There is a Ben here. A Ben with bad hair and a worse moustache, but even so, he’ll never be their Ben. His brother. The best of them, who never wanted to hurt anyone. Just a funny, sensitive kid with a stomach that was the lid to a box of horrors. Ben, who wanted to get a literature degree, and to build a rubber band ball. 

That hot pressure is back and leaking out of his eyes.

“Are you crying?” Klaus asks.

Diego doesn’t reply. He doesn’t shrug off Klaus’s hug either.

There’s a wounded animal clawing at his stomach and it wants him to howl and shriek. To pound his fists and weep. That’s too much right now. The silent tears will have to do, because he can’t do that. Not at three in the morning on a hotel balcony in the decent part of town. Not with four of his siblings sleeping in the next room.

Klaus sniffs him and makes a face, “You need a shower, Stinky.”

Diego doesn’t protest.

The blue light of the TV guides his feet through the near-black room. Bad infomercials look just as shitty in 4K HD. He startles at the sight of Vanya’s white eyes flicking to him.

“‘Time is it?” she mumbles.

“Three. Super late, go back to sleep,” he whispers.

Her eyes fade to brown and she nods, brow furrowed, then rolls over to bury her face in the pillow. Five mutters something in his sleep.

The door closes behind Diego with a click. The lights come on and he’s met with his own sickly expression again. He pulls his shirt up with a wince, finding the bandage bloodied and oozing.

It hurts when he pokes it, but he does it all the same because it’s a pain he can control. Until it becomes too much and he peels the bandage off. A ripped stitch or two. His guts are safe for the night.

The water pressure is better in 2019. Well, better because he’s in a hotel and not an asylum or Elliott’s apartment. It peels away grime, and sweat, and blood. He finds the bullet grazes and broken glass. Nothing urgent, which is good, because his body’s tension is circling the drain alongside the slowly clearing water. He shuts it off when the blood’s all washed off, towels off, and puts on his, ugh, dirty underwear. 

Klaus flipping through channels from his spot on the second bed with Allison when Diego comes out.

Vanya stirs at the disturbance again, but just rolls over.

Diego peels back his own covers and climbs into the cocoon of cotton and down. His body makes a series of pops and cracks as it settles. He sucks in a breath and looks at the ceiling.

Great.

Brain too wired to sleep and body too tired to do anything to satisfy the quest for answers.

Grace’s voice returns to his mind:  _ Okay, let’s do numbers. Just like your brothers and sisters. _

Een for Luther.

Dos for Diego.

Three for Allison.

Vier for Klaus.

Pénte for Five.

Yug for Ben.

Sem’ for Vanya.

He lets his mouth form the numbers silently, and feels the effect like a cup of Sleepy Time tea. His eyes droop and the words slow.

His last thoughts before sleep takes him are of Lila’s elbows digging into his back and wondering what the Punjabi word for “eight” is.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Some headcanons for the origins of the siblings. I made Luther South African and Five Greek because: Luther is a German name, BUT they all have different countries of origin and Klaus is German. Also, they don't speak French or Swedish, so that rules those two out. They all speak Ancient Greek because Hargreeves is a nerd, but I thought it would also make sense for Five. Ben is Korean like Justin H. Min.


End file.
